


Baby's First Snowfall

by Skyler10



Series: Family Fic [6]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Baby Fic, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Fluff, Domestics, F/M, Fluff without Plot, Romance, Snow, Telepathic Bond, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Winter, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 13:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9327044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyler10/pseuds/Skyler10
Summary: Rose and Tentoo are delighted to introduce their toddling daughter to snow for the first time. She is… less thrilled.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For winter fic bingo: white, hot cocoa, blanket, snow angel, and ice. Who knows, maybe more. Lol Halfway done with this bingo card!

Piper’s tiny mitten touched her lip in uncertainty, attempting to suck her thumb but quickly spitting out the fuzz that clung to her mouth instead. Clearly, she was expected to leave the doorway to the back garden, but this white stuff was COLD. And her mum had bundled her up in a big fluffy coat, a pink hat her gran had knitted, and clunky boots, making the relatively new act of navigating the world on her own two feet even more difficult. The little girl scowled up at her mum, who grinned and shut the door behind them. So much for escaping back into the house, then.

“C’mon, love,” her daddy beckoned. He knelt down in the snow and held out his arms. When it was clear his daughter was still afraid, he patted the snow beside him. “See? It’s not going to hurt you. Snow is fun! And, yes, admittedly, it is quite cold. But that just makes it more cozy to warm up later.”

Rose bent down next to her little girl. “Tell you what, if you try it, we can have hot cocoa later. Would you like that?”

Piper nodded and smiled, but still held tight to her mummy’s hand.

Rose stood and led her down the steps of the brick stoop. The Doctor waited, holding his breath as a tiny boot took a bold step out onto the white ground. Just then, the toddler slipped a bit on the ice, but Rose caught her easily and set her solidly on the snow-covered grass. They watched her for a moment, hoping this little patch of ice wasn’t the end of their afternoon of rare winter magic. Piper locked eyes with her mother again, trying to figure out whether or not to cry.

At Rose’s reassuring nod that all was well, Piper took stock of the situation. She wasn’t too far from Daddy, and Mummy was still holding her hand. The white cold stuff really was very pretty, and the two people she loved most in the world seemed very eager for her to enjoy this strange experience. She bent down to touch the snow. Perhaps she should lick it.

Unsteadily, she bent down, dragging Rose down with her, and scooped up some of the pure white. Some with no sticks or dirt. She already knew what those tasted like and it was NOT GOOD.

The Doctor laughed as Piper licked at the snowball in her hand and scrunched up her brow the exact same way he did.

Rose just rolled her eyes. “She may look like me, but she’s all you on the inside.”

The Doctor countered this with a protest, but he beamed in pride all the same.

Piper didn’t really know what was happening, but she giggled along anyway. Impulsively, she let go of Mummy’s hand and bolted straight for Daddy where he still crouched in the snow.

“Oof!” The Doctor caught the tiny pink-and-yellow rocket as she crashed into him. He held her tight for a moment and kissed her red baby cheek. “Glad you decided to join us, your highness.”

Rose snapped a photo with her mobile, then joined them in the snow.

“Noh!” Piper shouted in delight.

“No what?” her confused parents asked.

“Noooh!” Piper sang, pulling away from her father and picking up more snow. She tossed it into the air and giggled as it rained down around her. “Ssssss. Noh.”

Suddenly the Doctor had an idea. Full immersion, as they said, was the best method for conquering fears and things were going well so far.

“Hey, Piper!” he called to capture her attention. He fell back into a thick drift and stretched out. This had unexpected results, however, as she gasped and whimpered.

“Da!” Tears welling up, she turned to Rose. "Snowuh eat Daddy!”

“Oh darling,” Rose consoled, trying to hold back a laugh. “The snow didn’t eat Daddy! He’s playing with you.”

“Snow angels!” the Doctor explained. “Look!” He began moving his arms and legs, spreading the white powder thin.

Rose helped him up so he didn’t have to leave a handprint in the middle.

He picked up Piper and showed her the view from above. “See? It looks like the angel in Uncle Tony’s Christmas panto, remember?”

“Would you want to make one?” Rose asked. She rubbed her thumb along Piper’s cheek to catch her leftover tears before they could freeze. “I’ll do it with you.”

After a moment, Piper nodded with all the courage she could muster.

“Allons-y!” the Doctor declared. Rose laid down in the snow more gently and slowly than the Doctor had. She smiled up at Piper in encouragement and began moving her arms and legs to make the robe and wings. The Doctor lowered Piper to the ground, bum first, and laid her down carefully. She relaxed back fully in the snow like her parents had.

“Good job, sweetheart!” he praised. “Now, move those arms!” She giggled at the sight of her daddy flapping his arms as a model. She began sweeping her arms and kicking her legs in all directions, effectively spraying the Doctor in flakes.

Rose, who had long since finished her snow angel in favor of watching this exchange, laughed full and hard, making Piper flap and kick harder.

“Alright, alright!” the Doctor called. “Very good. I think we’ve mastered snow angels.”

Piper stopped moving and stared at him in expectation.

“Up!” she finally called when he was too preoccupied wiping the wet snow from his eyes.

Rose stood and picked up Piper so she could get a good look at her handiwork.

“See? Beautiful,” Rose said, tugging the little pink hat back down over her baby’s ears. Piper clapped in agreement.

“Beautiful,” the Doctor echoed, but instead of looking at the snow angels, he was taking out his own mobile to snap a photo of his two favorite girls. “Perfect.”

Piper looked back and forth between her parents, not understanding the Doctor’s wink and eyebrow waggle and Rose’s blush and “oh, you.”

“Now, who’s ready to learn how to make a snowman?” The Doctor turned and began to pile snow in a heap.

“Not too long,” Rose cautioned. “We do need to get her back inside.”

“Oh, not yet though!” The Doctor pouted. “Just a small one then!”

“Yeah, a small one’s fine.” Rose put down Piper and taught her how to scoop up snow in her hands. The baby’s efforts to help the snowman’s growth weren’t at all effective, but she felt part of the activity and it kept her occupied, so they let her keep running around and colliding into the snow pile.

After they had amassed a significant amount, the Doctor plopped a large ball for the head on top.

Piper’s nose was now running and the cold was getting uncomfortable. She whined and ran to cling to her mummy’s legs.

“Time to go inside,” Rose declared, hoisting Piper up to her hip.

“Bye, snow!” Piper waved as they crossed the threshold back into the house. While Rose stripped Piper of her outerwear, the Doctor dashed straight into the house, not even stopping to take off his boots.

“Doctor!” Rose called, but before she could tell him off, he returned with a carrot from the fridge and two chocolate biscuits.

“Nose and eyes!” he explained. He bounded back outside to the snowman, and Rose held Piper up to the window to watch. He delicately arranged the eyes and nose, then plucked two twigs from under a nearby tree, barren of leaves for several more months yet. He placed the twigs as arms and stood back as if examining his art, then unwound the scarf from around his own neck and draped it around the snowman’s. He also removed his knit beanie and placed it atop the snowman’s head. He rushed back inside, this time stopping to take off his boots and coat.

Piper giggled and clapped again, proud of her father’s additions. He took her in his arms and cuddled her close.

“I’ll get her changed if you want to start the cocoa?” the Doctor offered to Rose.

“Sounds like a plan.” She stopped to peck kisses to his cheek and their baby’s.

They reunited, all in warm jimjams, cuddled together on the living room floor with piles of blankets and pillows, and the Doctor selected a family-friendly movie. Rose very, very carefully sipped from her hot cocoa with a bouncy Piper on her lap. She had put Piper’s chocolate milk in a sippy cup, of course, and had only warmed it up a little so it wouldn’t be too hot for the baby’s sensitive mouth. Still, the sugar and excitement of the day had made for a wiggly little girl. Rose sighed and abandoned her mug to the nearby end table to avoid having it spill everywhere.

The Doctor finished his cocoa and took his and Rose’s mugs to the kitchen. He washed them so the chocolate wouldn’t be hard to get off later, despite not wanting to spend a minute away from his little family. When he returned, he was surprised to see Rose had Piper not only still, but paying attention to the movie. Upon closer examination, however, he noticed his wife was whispering into Piper’s ear and noticed the sound had been turned down on the movie.

Piper turned away from the screen at his entrance back into the room.

“Shhh,” the baby hushed him despite him not saying a word. “Mummy’s telling a stowy.”

The Doctor wrapped his arm around Rose’s shoulder and tugged them both close. “Well, don’t stop on my account,” he prodded gently when Rose merely smiled up at him.

“So then the prince flicked his screwdriver and made all of the windows explode!” Rose whispered. Piper gasped. “He used the distraction, of course, to rescue the princess who had definitely _not_ wandered off on her own despite the prince’s number one rule, no matter what the prince may tell you.”

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at this and shook his head, making Piper giggle. Rose ignored it and went on.

“The two of them ran very fast all the way through the city, down the hill, through the forest back to his magic box and disappeared into the stars.”

“Happy afteh?”

“And they lived happily ever after. Well. Eventually.” Rose glanced up at her part-human metacrisis husband and exchanged the smiles of people who have been through hell and back, but ended up in each other’s arms anyway despite all the multiverse could throw at them.  

“Mummy?” Piper rubbed her eyes and snuggled closer. “Is Tardy the magic box?”

“Yes, love. I’ll tell you a secret.” Rose leaned down a pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead. “The TARDIS is the magic box in all my stories.”

“Daddy’s youh pwince chaming.”

 It wasn’t a question but Rose affirmed it anyway, stroking her daughter’s soft hair as her tiny eyelids fell shut.

She sensed his words through their bond before he even said them, but it was still good to hear them anyway, whispered so soft and full of emotion into her hair followed by a kiss to her temple. They weren’t new words; he said them every day. But the memories provoked by her story to their daughter led her to need them right now and he knew it.

“I love you, both of you, more than anything. There’s nowhere else in all the multiverse I’d rather be.”

She echoed the words back to him through their bond, placing a mental kiss at the end since she couldn’t reach him with how Piper was cuddled so close on her lap. He hummed in contentment and tucked in the blanket around them.

“Want to switch over to that film we were watching the other night that we didn’t get to finish?” Rose nodded to the TV where the kid movie was still playing. “The one with the first black women at NASA and John Glenn? We were at a really good part before Little Miss here woke up with a nightmare.”

 “Oh yeah!” The Doctor almost forgot to be quiet in his excitement. “You know… you really are the perfect one for me.” He winked down at her and reached for the remote but didn’t start it yet.  

She laughed and laid her head on his shoulder. “Better be. I’m your wife.”

He made a happy little noise. “After all these years, I still can’t quite believe I’m so lucky.”

“I know the feeling.” They both watched the little one they had created as she slept peacefully in her mother’s arms.

“She really is more like you than you say,” the Doctor observed, softly breaking the silence.   

“Yeah? How’d ya think?” Rose asked, curious.

“Well just look at her today. She was clearly scared of the snow, but she did it anyway and didn’t let her fear keep her from experiencing something wonderful. If that isn’t you… She’s a brave one, and that smile! And everything. She’s so much like you and I love every bit.”

“Thanks,” Rose breathed out. “I love how much she’s like you too. Every day, I discover something she gets from you. Sometimes I don’t know if it’s the Gallifreyen in her or just you, but I really do love it. Even more than that, she’s _ours_. That’s just…”

“Incredible” she finished at the same time he said, “fantastic.”

“Fantastic,” she confirmed. It really was in the literal sense too, for only in her wildest fantasies could she ever have imagined that her tough Northern Doctor or her manic second Doctor would eventually become this man, gentle and brilliant and strong as ever, raising their child with her as husband and wife.

 _Life really was like today,_ she mused as he pointed the remote to start the movie with one hand and squeezed her shoulder in affection with the other hand. _Sometimes you don’t know what fun and love and adventures and memories await you. You just have to step off the ledge into the snow._


End file.
